Cashback training offer aims to welcome more Morecambe Bay women into motorcycling

But rustiness, inexperience and apprehension can inhibit many from joining a group or even booking that first lesson.

As well as offering a welcoming, supportive and friendly group to ride out and train with, local motorcycle group Morecambe Bay Estuaries Advanced Motorcyclists (MBEAM) are pioneering an accredited cashback training scheme designed to encourage riders to improve their road skills and safety.

Costing £175, each course comprises a minimum of six coaching sessions individually tailored to the rider and conducted locally at times to suit. Working in association with Cumbria Road Safety Partnership, there are cash back incentives for interested motorcyclists. Cumbrian residents can quality for £100 cashback and there’s £40 being offered to Lancashire residents.

MBEAM chairman Rudy Rengers said: “Most insurers reward the safer, more confident riding that this national qualification offers with lower premiums. More efficient riding even reduces wear and tear, meaning fewer repairs and bills!

With female membership of the British Motorcyclists Federation up by 50% over the last two years, MBEAM are also keen to kick some of the preconceptions about motorcycling firmly to the kerb and encourage any interested women to take that first step.

Organising their own regular club rides, road and track skill sessions, trips, tours and socials, they pride themselves on being an all age, all inclusive and all welcoming club, with a core of enthusiastic female riders. Women have also reported the benefits of platforms such as Facebook making it easier to ‘meet’ groups online before turning up in person.

Rudy added: “It’s fantastic to see a wider diversity of people riding, some after having dreamt of doing so for years, becoming safer and more confident riders. Biking is wonderfully welcoming and sociable, and gets you out in our incredible countryside. Very movingly, one woman, who learned to ride with Parkinson’s, described it as ‘physical and mental therapy on two wheels!”

Rudy said: “The funding is time-limited and there’s no catch. It really is all about safer riding. You need to register your interest through MBEAM, then complete the Institute of Advanced Motorist’s accredited Advanced Motorcycle Rider Training course and take your test with us.”

For more details on MBEAM and the IAM Advanced Rider courses, which can also be booked as a gift for Christmas, see www.mbeam.org.uk or e-mail [email protected]